French Report Faults Response to Mad Cow Crisis

By SUZANNE DALEY

Published: May 18, 2001

PARIS, May 17—
A parliamentary committee issued a scathing report today on France's handling of the mad cow crisis during the last 10 years, accusing successive agricultural ministers of blocking precautionary steps because they were trying to appease a powerful agriculture sector.

The report found that agriculture officials had ''repeatedly sought to prevent or delay the adoption of precautionary measures -- that later proved necessary for health safety -- on grounds that there was no scientific basis for them.''

The report criticized governments from the right and the left -- under Prime Ministers Edouard Balladur, Alain Juppé and Lionel Jospin -- saying all of them had paid too much attention to the economic concerns of the cattle industry.

But the report, the result of a six-month inquiry by a Senate commission of inquiry, also harshly criticized Britain, saying the British had to accept ''major responsibility'' for exporting the disease to Europe by ''shamelessly'' authorizing exports of its meat and bone meal when it had already concluded that such feed components were an important element in transmitting the disease.

In addition, the commission lashed out at the European Union for ''inertia'' in the face of the growing problem.

''This inexplicable attitude on the part of one of our European partners, coupled with an E.U. commission more concerned about putting in place a single market than with food safety, is essentially the root of the current crisis,'' the commission said.

In July 1988, as Britain grappled with a rising number of cases of mad cow disease, it banned the use of meat-based feed for ruminants. But it continued to allow exports. It was not until 1990 that France took action to stop the import of British meat and bone meal.